Posts by Jason Kemp

As a child of the 60’s the radio was the main medium for most of that decade. I do recall the Peter Snell Gold Medal and the Wahine disaster. Later on the Apollo landing on the moon on 10 July 1969 was it? (Looked it up was 20th of July 69)

We were told something like you will remember where you were when this happened by our teachers and I we listened to a radio broadcast in our classroom. I thought I’d do some thing so I retied the laces in my shoes so I could remember it.

What a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Thanks for putting these events on. I heard more than enough insights from the attendees both on the stage and off it.

What stayed with me though were the comments by Tina about having a seat at the table. I work at the edge of lots of projects around the place and I would echo that. There are often a handful of the same people involved in many projects and they would love more input from all of us.

What I liked about this IRL was the sheer range of topics. Everything from Brexit to data journalism. I thought ex Waikato farmer John Lord might have got a namecheck on the legalisation talk although maybe the mentions of Colorado implied that.

I wish I had written it down but perhaps best quote came from Harkanwal Singh who was surprised to learn that a story didn’t need to be true to get published or something along those lines.

His comments about how stories get up to 2 hrs of prime space and then they disappear if they don’t get clicks seems right but it is still worrisome. It does mean that editors are not being editorial they are going for the lowest quality metric.

Perhaps because it wasn’t a public transport initiative, the multi-million-dollar bungle with the “dead” lane on the St Lukes interchange never seems to have registered as a headline.

Somewhat bemused at this one. From what I can tell the lane on the bridge is closed because they couldn't bowl the 6 trees. The off ramp from the motorway on that side was also bungled which is probably a contributing factor.

Someone asked about Winston and the Bolger government. That didn’t collapse till Shipley took power in a coup. Apparently she had been undermining Peters previously and that is what happened. People don’t remember the full context.

I am not a fan of Peters but he has been around since the 70’s and he clearly has some skills in the back room. I’m happy the Greens have a seat at the table this time even if it is slightly removed. That is just the way the votes came out.

If the Greens had 9 seats the NZF had 8 I doubt a deal could have been done so this is great.

Bill English has made history it being the second time he has inherited a prime ministership only to lose it all.

We need some vision and leadership and going with a new government is much smarter than retreading the same old team for a fourth term.

I’m hoping National might even be a half way decent opposition. There are plenty of ( now ex) cabinet ministers that needed to wake up.

So back in 2012 there was a referendum on MMP. Dropping the target % from 5% down to 4% was one of the recommendations. Getting rid of the overhang etc. was also in there.

From memory none of the recommendations were adopted. Is that the case and if the proposed rule changes diminish the two big parties share then none of the MMP rules will change just like the reallocation.